Covenants in the Old Testament & Deuteronomy

By Dr. Eugene Merrill

Well, covenants have to do with a relationship between God and human beings. And covenants can also, on a secular level, be made between human beings. But the covenant is a mechanism whereby that relationship is expressed. And God takes the initiative in making covenant—human beings never do in the Bible—and the covenant is always made available to humankind by the Lord, and then men have the opportunity to accept or reject the covenant that God makes.

My favorite book is the book of Deuteronomy because the book of Deuteronomy is a covenant renewal document, a covenant renewal text, and it is preparing the people of Israel for life in the Land of Promise. The covenant made at Sinai was to prepare them for life in the wilderness or in the desert, but now that they're about to cross over into the land of Canaan, they'll be living in cities and towns—they'll be sedentary people—and so the book tells them how they ought to live before God. And so it's a massive covenant text which informs the Israelite people what they are to believe, how they are to believe it, and how they are to live. And furthermore, it's the third most quoted book in the New Testament, next to Psalms and the book of Isaiah—and one instance comes to mind, and that's when Jesus is tempted by the devil in the wilderness; He quotes from the book of Deuteronomy three times, Jesus does, to answer the claims of the devil.

So I think it's a very richly profound theological work.

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